Author Mindy Schoeneman
Everything and everybody has a story, and the world is a better place if we share our stories. Mindy Schoeneman writes with this belief as her foundation. Talk to Mindy for half an hour, and she’ll begin telling you yours with a perception that will amaze you (or bring you to tears).
The Beginning
For Mindy, her story as a writer starts with the story of a reader—or rather, a little girl who had a strong will and no interest in becoming a reader.
Her world was acres and acres of woods, and freedom to roam in them provided by her homeschooling schedule. Under a dying autumn leaf or in a cold rushing river, she found more to keep her brain and heart busy than she would have in any classroom.
For much of her early childhood, Mindy just wasn’t interested in reading. There was so much to see and touch in the magical world around her. Why look at the pages of a book?
But then Mindy started listening when her mother read from Little House in the Big Woods, and she realized there was another world inside the pages of a book. If the world around her was endlessly interesting, she reasoned, how much more fascinating would it be to explore these other worlds trapped between the covers of a book? She felt them calling to her to come explore and solve their mysteries.
Finally relenting, much to her mother’s relief, Mindy quickly learned to read. And as soon as she became a reader, she also became writer. She wrote poems and stories. She wrote her feelings and those of others. She wrote to understand, to cope, to record, to explore. And she wrote to deal with her own struggles and to answer the questions of life.
Writing would sneak into her life throughout her childhood and teen years in the form of web copy for a singer, poetry for a contest, and a story via a fun fiction collaboration with a pen pal.
Ignoring a Calling
Mindy has always had a story to tell. But she tried to ignore the urge to tell it for many years, instead focusing on the things that paid the bills. But writing wouldn’t leave her alone.
When Mindy finally quit her day job to become a freelancer, her love of story-finding and story-telling wound its way into every aspect of her life and new business.
Human interactions transformed into lines of compelling copy. Businesses and brands began to find a way to voice what made them who they were.
But writing isn’t just a professional pursuit for Mindy. It’s deeply personal. It’s her way of processing the world. By reverently recording and honoring life, she sees the connections in the world around her, like a giant puzzle waiting to be solved.
“I started writing early as a way to express things I couldn’t otherwise articulate or even put together fully in my mind.” — Mindy Schoeneman
So even when she wasn’t telling her own story, Mindy was helping other people tell theirs, knowing the world could be a better place by sharing those stories and helping others make those connections.
“Books are a link between us, capable of bringing people together,” Mindy says.
When Mindy had an experience that was as other-worldly and strange as the woods where she played as a child were familiar and safe, she knew she had a story of her own to share with readers. Her current work in progress, Adrienne’s Awakening, is that story.
Mindy’s Writing Journey
Follow Mindy on her writing journey by connecting with her through Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Learn more about her story which is expected to be released very soon.
Mindy’s Favorite Books:
The classics:
Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Bronte
Emma
by Jane Austen
(well, everything by Jane Austen)
Little Women
by Louisa May Alcott
1984
by George Orwell
More recently written:
The Infernal Devices Trilogy
by Cassandra Clare
The Creepy Hollow Series
by Rachel Morgan
Silent Child
by Sarah A. Denzil
The Collapsing Empire
by John Scalzi
Maximum Ride Series
by James Patterson
Fun Facts About Mindy:
- She doesn’t like to cook. Who does? Thankfully, her wonderful husband enjoys cooking and baking so she’s fed well.
- She runs her own marketing company.
- She has two adorable kiddos (not that she’s not biased or anything).
- She grew up in the woods of Missouri. Have you seen Netflix’s series Ozark? Okay, so there weren’t large amounts of drug money to be laundered and a crazy old naked guy in her part of Missouri—it has nothing to do with her childhood really, but it’s an interesting show and it’s the only pop culture reference she could come up with.
- She’s allergic to cats. Like, deathly allergic. Giving a nice kitty a scratch behind the ear can have disastrous effects on her if she forgets to wash her hands immediately after. Hello, albuterol, old friend.